Ice Beast

[Nanshork]

Both of the frozen faculty options now add class skills, two skills per option.  Mental gets Concentration and Spellcraft, Physical gets Initimdate and Survival (the key skills of the two disciplines).

I also added a 10th level capstone.

[Nanshork]

Now a ten level class with a capstone (again).

Extra Ice Power feat added.

Ice Power changes
Rimefire Infusion added.
Physical Faculty Improvement added.
Mental Faculty Improvement added.


The sorcerer casting feels weak given the spell list.  Would it be unreasonable to grant all Cold descriptor spells from the sorcerer/wizard spell lists as spells known?  They Ice Beast would still not be able to learn non-cold spells.


Edit: Ice Lance added.  Frigid Touch adjusted, it can now be used as a touch attack so the ice beast can touch itself for healing after Ice Beast 5.

Wisdom of the North Wind added.  You can get a stat bonus if you want now.

Edit edit: Superchilled Hide added.  Leeching Cold effect reduced to entangled but now lasts for 1 round per 2 Ice Beast levels (minimum 1).  It also now only applies when Ice Powers are used.

Freeze in Ice (effectively Improved Leeching Cold) added.

[Nanshork]

Physical Faculty Reformation and Mental Faculty Reformation added.

These are capstone Ice Powers that can only be taken at Ice Beast 10.

We're now at 17 ice powers (4 related to the Faculty choices) and can choose 16.

I'm not sure if I should add a couple more above the 16 select-able per faculty choice (Currently you can choose 15 per faculty since 2 are always no-go for you) in case people don't care about the spellcasting/initiating or if we're good once you can choose 16.


Also Mental Faculty Improvement feels really clunky to me and I feel like it needs a second prereq to be even with Physical Faculty Improvement.

[Nanshork]

Arctic Ambusher now lets you see through falling snow and sleet without issue so you can use Sleet Storm and not screw yourself over.

I'm contemplating an Improved Cold Aura that lets you not affect allies.  I'm trying to figure out if also increasing the radius to 20 feet would be too much.  You'd have to be Ice Beast 5 or above to take it.


I'll stop fucking with it until I get feedback...


Edit:
Ideas so I don't break my promise.

Frozen Faculty to gain the Living Construct type and gain Str and Con bonuses.  (Not sure about follow up Ice Powers...)

New Ice Powers (need some level prereqs probably, these would give everything that could use one an "improved" version):

Crystalline Camouflage (Su): (Requires Arctic Ambusher) The ice beast learns to reshape itself.  It gains the Amorphous Disguise feat (even though it normally couldn't qualify), and in addition to the normal benefits of the feat you can also use disguise self to take the form of any inanimate object (such as a wall, column, door, etc) made of ice that fits within the size limitations of the disguise self spell.

Glacial Lance (Su): (Requires Ice Lance) The ice beasts ice lance grows more powerful.  It now has a range of 100 feet and any creature hit is stuck and unable to move for 1 round as it is effectively pinned to the ground.  Flying creatures have their wings temporarily damaged and become unable to fly for 1 round, if currently flying they fall 50 feet before being able to recovery.  If this causes them to fall to the ground (or another solid surface) they take appropriate falling damage.

Improved Engulf (Ex): (Requires Engulf) The ice beast can now engulf creatures up to its size category, and can engulf multiple creatures as long as the total size of the creatures do not exceed the ice beasts size. (1 Colossal creature is equivalent to 2 Gargantuan, 1 Gargantuan is equivalent to 2 Huge, 1 Huge is equivalent to 2 Large, 1 Large is equivalent to 2 Medium, 1 Medium is equivalent to 2 Small, 1 Small is equivalent to 2 Tiny, 1 Tiny is equivalent to 2 Diminutive, 1 Diminutive is equivalent to 2 Fine).  Example: A large ice beast could engulf 1 medium creature and 2 small creatures as that adds up to 1 large which is the ice beast's size.  In addition, the ice beast's engulf ability now ignores Freedom and Movement and similar effects.

Improved Ice Breath (Su): (Requires Ice Breath) The ice beast's breath weapon can now be a 60 foot line or a 45 foot cone.  In addition, any creature that fails its saving throw versus the breath weapon is sickened for 1 round.

[Nanshork]

Any feedback?

[oslecamo]

Adding the skills for the martial path sounds like a good touch.

Adding all cold spells doesn't sound like a very good idea to me since it would mean promoting dumpster driving which slows down games. Besides with Frostburn alone there's a lot of good Cold spells to pick from already, and this class is also getting the Ice Powers as extra support.

Improved Ice Magic seems too novaish right now, I would remove the free quickens or at least limit them to 1/minute. Maybe add a bonus to SR penetration instead?

Also I'm not a fan of fully nullifying resistances/immunities (except for Freedom of Movement, screw that noise), so I would suggest Ice Mastery ignores an amount of resistance equal to twice Ice Beast level, and deals up to the same amount to ice immune creatures, and then those bonus are multiplied by 1,5 when Artic Abomination is gained (so ignore resistance equal to thrice Ice Beast level and cold immune creatures take up to triple Ice Beast level cold damage).

Frozen Faculty to gain the Living Construct type and gain Str and Con bonuses.  (Not sure about follow up Ice Powers...)

Living construct alone is pretty powerful, and you could make the Str and Con bonus Ice powers of their own.

New Ice Powers (need some level prereqs probably, these would give everything that could use one an "improved" version):

Crystalline Camouflage (Su): (Requires Arctic Ambusher) The ice beast learns to reshape itself.  It gains the Amorphous Disguise feat (even though it normally couldn't qualify), and in addition to the normal benefits of the feat you can also use disguise self to take the form of any inanimate object (such as a wall, column, door, etc) made of ice that fits within the size limitations of the disguise self spell.

Cool!

Glacial Lance (Su): (Requires Ice Lance) The ice beasts ice lance grows more powerful.  It now has a range of 100 feet and any creature hit is stuck and unable to move for 1 round as it is effectively pinned to the ground.  Flying creatures have their wings temporarily damaged and become unable to fly for 1 round, if currently flying they fall 50 feet before being able to recovery.  If this causes them to fall to the ground (or another solid surface) they take appropriate falling damage.

Needs a save or check of some sort to resist being pinned otherwise it's kinda super kiting. Would make it count as ongoing damage for spells and other concentration stuff.

Improved Engulf (Ex): (Requires Engulf) The ice beast can now engulf creatures up to its size category, and can engulf multiple creatures as long as the total size of the creatures do not exceed the ice beasts size. (1 Colossal creature is equivalent to 2 Gargantuan, 1 Gargantuan is equivalent to 2 Huge, 1 Huge is equivalent to 2 Large, 1 Large is equivalent to 2 Medium, 1 Medium is equivalent to 2 Small, 1 Small is equivalent to 2 Tiny, 1 Tiny is equivalent to 2 Diminutive, 1 Diminutive is equivalent to 2 Fine).  Example: A large ice beast could engulf 1 medium creature and 2 small creatures as that adds up to 1 large which is the ice beast's size.  In addition, the ice beast's engulf ability now ignores Freedom and Movement and similar effects.

Anything that screws FoM is fine by me. Probably needs Dimensional Lock for good measure.

Improved Ice Breath (Su): (Requires Ice Breath) The ice beast's breath weapon can now be a 60 foot line or a 45 foot cone.  In addition, any creature that fails its saving throw versus the breath weapon is sickened for 1 round.

Cool!

Other new abilities and feat seem good.

[Nanshork]

Improved Ice Magic adjusted, no more metamagic.  Now you spend extra uses for SR penetration with a maximum bonus of your HD.

On Cold Resistance/Immunity: I'd remembered you having a creature that bypassed it.  However, I just looked and it was the Xixical and it doesn't come into effect until epic levels.  Toned down Ice Mastery and Arctic Abomination.  Ice mastery is based off of ice beast level, Arctic abomination is HD.

Ice powers have been added.

 - Glacial Lance now allows a Fortitude Save vs pinning and the Fort save DC is also the Concentration DC for spellcasting/whatever.
 - Improved Engulf now blocks extradimensional travel at 10 HD.


New Ice Powers count: 4 related to Frozen Faculty, 17 other.  19 choices per build, pick 16.

Other changes:
 - Arctic Ambusher now lets you see through sleet and falling snow.


Should the durations for Leeching Cold and Freeze in Ice be reduced?

I added some restricting language for the Mental and Physical frozen faculties, otherwise the ice beast was looking too big for his britches.

[Nanshork]

Any more feedback?

[oslecamo]

- Glacial Lance now allows a Fortitude Save vs pinning and the Fort save DC is also the Concentration DC for spellcasting/whatever.

Usually skills have a higher bonus than saves, so using a save formula for a Concentration DC will result in something the spellcaster can probably do with a natural 1. Thus the concentration check should have an higher DC than the save.

Should the durations for Leeching Cold and Freeze in Ice be reduced?

Leeching Cold no, but Freeze in Ice staggered yes. You may also want to allow the option to still inflict entangle since in some situations it can be better (concentration DC, penalty to Ref saves).

Other changes looking good.

[Nanshork]

Glacial Lance Concentration DC boosted considerably.  (From 10 + 1/2 HD + wis mod to 10 + damage)

Freeze in Ice updated, staggered is now 1 round and can still entangle if they want.

Frozen Faculty: Mental updated to prevent the ice beast from ever learning Fire spells, even if they take levels in a class that lets them learn other spells outside the normal class list.

Also, the spellcasting language has been changed from "The ice beast can only learn spells with the Cold descriptor" to "Only Sorcerer spells with the Cold descriptor are on the ice beast's spell list".  This will prevent any loopholing (theoretically) and also using magic items and whatnot.

[Nanshork]

Any more feedback or is it good to go?

[oslecamo]

The ice beast can never learn spells with the Fire descriptor, even with class abilities that let you learn a spell that you normally couldn't, and if the ice beast ever somehow does learn a spell with the Fire descriptor (such as by having taken levels in sorcerer before choosing this frozen faculty), those spells are immediately retrained to spells with the Cold descriptor.

Should have a restriction that the retrained cold spells must be of the same level as the previous fire spells.

Otherwise everything seems good here.

[Nanshork]

The ice beast can never learn spells with the Fire descriptor, even with class abilities that let you learn a spell that you normally couldn't, and if the ice beast ever somehow does learn a spell with the Fire descriptor (such as by having taken levels in sorcerer before choosing this frozen faculty), those spells are immediately retrained to spells with the Cold descriptor.

Should have a restriction that the retrained cold spells must be of the same level as the previous fire spells.

Otherwise everything seems good here.

Oops, fixed.

I've run out of inspiration so unless anyone else has anything I'm not changing anything else.

[oslecamo]

Cool, added to the index!

[Nanshork]

Notes as I'm looking this over in anticipation of playing one:

Cold Aura should say "minimum 1d6", not "minimum 1".

Crystalline Camouflage should be adjusted to match the gender neutral language of the other abilities.

Should Mental/Physical Faculty Improvement require Ice Beast 5 so that there is a progress from Improvement to Reformation?

Physical Faculty Improvement should be limited to regain one maneuver per round.

[oslecamo]

Notes as I'm looking this over in anticipation of playing one:

Cold Aura should say "minimum 1d6", not "minimum 1".

I always read it as  minimum 1 (dice), but yeah 1d6 is clearer.

Crystalline Camouflage should be adjusted to match the gender neutral language of the other abilities.

Ok.

Should Mental/Physical Faculty Improvement require Ice Beast 5 so that there is a progress from Improvement to Reformation?

Yes.

Physical Faculty Improvement should be limited to regain one maneuver per round.

Another good point.

[Nanshork]

Changes made.  In addition I changed Crystalline Camouflage to only grant the extra "disguise self" forms from the Amorphous Disguise feat. The way it was written any casting of Disguise Self could do it which wasn't the intention.

I'm not happy tying the maneuver recovery mechanism with Cold Aura, mainly because the options allow you to build as a skirmisher/tunneler/mobile striker and cold aura requires you to be right next to the guy.  Any thoughts on that?

Edit: Maybe make it just having dealt cold damage to a creature?  Or is that too much?

[oslecamo]

I personally believe it's good to reign back a bit on skirmishers, since that can easily become annoying/cheesy. Needing to get close and personal now and then seems like a feature to me. Only needing to deal any kind of cold damage would definitely be too much.

[Nanshork]

I can't come up with any alternatives that work based off of his class features.

Actually, comparing Ice Beast to Frostwind Virago makes me think the maneuver recovery needs to be toned down.  Free action is probably too much, even with the potential to hurt allies.

What if we make it based off of Frigid Touch instead of Cold Aura and thus requires making normal melee attacks which still puts them in melee and but isn't recovery with no action cost?

Also, cold aura feels clunky.  What do you think about getting rid of the weird verbiage on requiring it to happen before any other action and making it a swift or a move action?  I'm feeling like the Ice Beast needs a little toning down in that regard too.



Okay, instead of taking care of stuff in my house I'm now brainstorming and feeling motivated.

Things I think would be actual improvements:
 - Make Cold Aura a swift action and a save for half damage, no more free action d6s.  This way it competes with maneuvers as an option instead of just being extra damage for free.
 - Make Physical Faculty Improvement recover maneuvers based off of Frigid Touch.  This makes maneuver recovery a standard or full-attack option.
 - Replace 5th level Ice Power with Frozen Faculty Improvement, making it an actual part of the class progression.
 - Replace 10th level Ice Power with Frozen Faculty Reformation, making it an actual part of the class progression.
 - That gives us 13 selections to choose from 17 choices
 - I also feel like Leeching Cold and Freeze In Ice could be changed to Fatigued/Exhausted since that's traditionally the status effect of cold.

Things I am thinking about:
 - That's ratio of selections to choices is way off.  Make new options.
 - Hoarfrost Aura (Su): (Requires Cold Aura) Any creature who fails its saving throw against the Ice Beast's Cold Aura is entangled for one round.
 - Ice Crafter: Twice per HD per day, the Ice Beast is able to create small mundane items, such as tools or weapons, of 15 pounds or lighter and with a value of no more than 10 gp/HD as a swift action by forming it out of the ice of its body.  Items that require moving or flexible parts, ammunition, or are consumable cannot be created by this ability. Any weapon created by this ability counts as masterwork as long as it is wielded by the Ice Beast.  These items last for 2 rounds/HD and will melt into nothingness one round after they leave contact with the Ice Beast.
 -  That puts us at 13 selections to choose from 19 choices because I can't come up with something for Blighted Cold which is a cool name but that's as far as I got.

Ice Crafter is something that came up as an option earlier and the Ice Beast could use some non-combat based abilities.  It's a toned down version of the Shaedling's ability.

[oslecamo]

I can't come up with any alternatives that work based off of his class features.

Actually, comparing Ice Beast to Frostwind Virago makes me think the maneuver recovery needs to be toned down.  Free action is probably too much, even with the potential to hurt allies.

What if we make it based off of Frigid Touch instead of Cold Aura and thus requires making normal melee attacks which still puts them in melee and but isn't recovery with no action cost?

Also, cold aura feels clunky.  What do you think about getting rid of the weird verbiage on requiring it to happen before any other action and making it a swift or a move action?  I'm feeling like the Ice Beast needs a little toning down in that regard too.

Swift action cold aura and changing recovery to Frigid touch sounds good.

Okay, instead of taking care of stuff in my house I'm now brainstorming and feeling motivated.

Things I think would be actual improvements:
 - Make Cold Aura a swift action and a save for half damage, no more free action d6s.  This way it competes with maneuvers as an option instead of just being extra damage for free.
 - Make Physical Faculty Improvement recover maneuvers based off of Frigid Touch.  This makes maneuver recovery a standard or full-attack option.
 - Replace 5th level Ice Power with Frozen Faculty Improvement, making it an actual part of the class progression.
 - Replace 10th level Ice Power with Frozen Faculty Reformation, making it an actual part of the class progression.
 - That gives us 13 selections to choose from 17 choices
 - I also feel like Leeching Cold and Freeze In Ice could be changed to Fatigued/Exhausted since that's traditionally the status effect of cold.

-Again the swift action is nice,  but adding a save may clutter things up since it's more rolls per round. I would suggest instead reducing the damage to 1d4 or maybe 1d6-1 so that way it can deal 0 damage.
-Ok.
-Disagree, it should be possible to don't focus on either path.
-See above.
-Need more selections then. 
-High heat can easily lead to fatigue/exhaustion as does negative energy. But why not make them new cold abilities then?

Things I am thinking about:
 - That's ratio of selections to choices is way off.  Make new options.
 - Hoarfrost Aura (Su): (Requires Cold Aura) Any creature who fails its saving throw against the Ice Beast's Cold Aura is entangled for one round.
 - Ice Crafter: Twice per HD per day, the Ice Beast is able to create small mundane items, such as tools or weapons, of 15 pounds or lighter and with a value of no more than 10 gp/HD as a swift action by forming it out of the ice of its body.  Items that require moving or flexible parts, ammunition, or are consumable cannot be created by this ability. Any weapon created by this ability counts as masterwork as long as it is wielded by the Ice Beast.  These items last for 2 rounds/HD and will melt into nothingness one round after they leave contact with the Ice Beast.
 -  That puts us at 13 selections to choose from 19 choices because I can't come up with something for Blighted Cold which is a cool name but that's as far as I got.

Ice Crafter is something that came up as an option earlier and the Ice Beast could use some non-combat based abilities.  It's a toned down version of the Shaedling's ability.

-I'm not really a fan of  spammable swift action multi-target damage+status effect. Could see it as a different aura that only entangles on failed save as swift action.
-Looks cool.
-Again, you could make fatigue/exhaustion versions for the entangling abilities, including a 3rd aura option.